


How to Be Happy

by superfluouskeys



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Tragedy, i'm warning you lol, set in present-day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2019-08-24 00:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16629692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: "Girlfriend?""None to speak of.""Then who's this?"Silence.  Stillness.  Then, the quiet clinking and fizzing of Moira's work continues.  "That was a long time ago."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, I'm the worst and can't focus on a single project. 
> 
> It's in the tags, but please be advised that I have been specifically asked, and have therefore challenged myself, to write a tragedy. This is not my usual brand of "angst with a happy ending."

"—not sure I approve of harbouring a hostage, Gabriel."  The first voice Ashe hears when she comes to is low and rough, but airy, like the words are a joke.

"Oh, shut up, Moira.  Since when do you care?"  The second voice is like a dark cloud of smoke, hazy and inhuman.

The next thing that catches Ashe's attention is the throbbing pain in the side of her head.  She blinks against the darkness, feeling like she's gone blind, and when she tries to move, she finds her hands tied behind her back.

She looks around, desperate for something to see, and finds only a thin stream of light at the bottom of a door.

"—some way to treat an old friend.  And here I thought I was doing you a favour."

"You owe me, Moira.  More than one."

A sigh, strangely lighthearted given the context.  "Fine, fine."  Footsteps at the door.  Unbearable brightness.

"Well, good morning, Miss Caledonia," says the woman with the rough, airy tone. 

Ashe squints against the light.  All she can make out is a tall, looming silhouette. 

"How are you feeling?"

Ashe wishes desperately for the ability to shield her eyes while they adjust, and loathes her weakness in the face of whatever this is.  "Been better," she manages, flatly.

"Yes, I'm sure," says the woman, like it's a joke.  She enters the room with slow, measured steps.  "Personally I've never managed much efficiency with a gun, but I am given to understand that those who do take great pride in their skill.  It must have been difficult, being outmaneuvered by one so....feckless."

Ashe squeezes her eyes closed and sighs.  "Did you go to all this trouble just to talk to me about McCree?"

The woman chuckles quietly.  "I did nothing of the sort.  As far as I'm concerned, the cowboy may do as he pleases.  But my friend outside disagrees."

Ashe struggles to remember what she's heard, and to make sense of it.  "Huh.  What'd McCree do to him, I wonder?"

The shadow of the woman is beginning to take shape.  She's smartly dressed, slacks and a button-down shirt with a tie, and her hair is cropped short.  She's got her hands folded behind her back.  She shrugs.  "I prefer not to pry into such matters."

Ashe quirks one eyebrow.  "You don't want to know?"

The woman hesitates, but Ashe can't make out her face.  "It's better, if I don't."

"I gotta say, ma'am, this is some interrogation."

The woman chuckles again.  For such a quiet, gentle sound, it's strangely chilling.  "I confess I'm not very experienced with the 'good cop' end of the routine."

As though in direct response, heavy footsteps sound from outside the room.  Another shadow blocks out the light from the doorway, but this shadow is different.  Less...solid.

"So," says the other voice, the one like something out of a nightmare.  "Does she know where McCree went?"

"Manners, Gabriel," says the woman, and now Ashe struggles to remember her name.  "Don't you think we ought to be cordial to our guest, before demanding information regarding her loyalties?"

Ashe huffs, and before she can think better of it, says, "I got no loyalty to Jesse McCree, if that's what you mean."

The shadowy figure approaches, and he brings the cold with him.  Ashe shivers involuntarily.  "Then you'll tell me where he is."  It's not a question.

Ashe shrugs, as much as she is able, and affects an easy smile.  "Supposing we work out some kind of agreement."

" _No agreements_ ," the shadow called Gabriel looms over her, and Ashe can just barely see that his face is covered with a garish mask.

"Now, now, Gabriel," says the woman, but her tone isn't one of chiding, or even of concern.

Gabriel scoffs.  "What could she possibly want that's worth—?"

"My omnic, obviously," Ashe interjects flatly.  "And you want him, too, if you're planning to go after McCree now."  There's a lot more she could say, about how McCree's gotten smarter since last she saw him, that McCree knows how Ashe feels about taking her revenge, and that she'll bet he's got friends to protect him after the way he's humiliated her.

"Out of the question, I'm afraid," says the woman before Gabriel can even react.  "Incredible as it may seem, I'd prefer to avoid a full-blown fire fight in my lab."

She's smart, too, the smartly-dressed woman with the rough, airy tone.  Like a chess master who sees how things can play out several moves in advance.  Hard to get a good read on the shadow-man, though.  He's angry, unfocused as the shape of himself.  Maybe he's so fixated on revenge that he can't see the path clearly.  That's why he needs the woman with the clear head and the indifferent manner.

Ashe heaves a sigh and considers her options.  She tries to remember what she overheard earlier, about the woman owing Gabriel for something.  She thinks about how Gabriel defers to the woman without realizing it, and about how the woman hesitated when Ashe tried to pry into Gabriel's plan.  She turns her gaze upon the woman, who is slouching against the wall to the side of the door.  Her face is still half-shrouded in shadow, but Ashe can see that her nose and chin are sharp, and her hair is red.

"I'll do what I can for you," says Ashe with a sigh, like it's a concession, because that makes people feel like they've won something, "because it so happens that our goals align for the time being.  You give me your _word_ that you'll rebuild B.O.B. once this is over, and I'll consider that a deal."

The woman turns to consider Ashe, and Ashe sees the way her eyes catch the light from outside the dark room.  "You value your word?  Ashe?"

Ashe nods gravely.

"Then supposing our mission is successful," says the woman, "I can rebuild your omnic quite easily, after which you will _give your word_ to leave my company quietly, and without incident."

Ashe feels herself smiling.  She likes it when people know what she and B.O.B. are capable of without having to spell it out.  Subtlety is a rare virtue.  "Seems like we have an understanding, ma'am."

The woman turns her head to Gabriel, whose answering sigh is like a gathering storm.  "You'll forgive me if I'm not inclined to trust...words," he says dryly.

The woman scoffs airily.  "You doubt our combined skill in an impromptu skirmish?" she wonders as she crosses the room and disappears into the darkness.  "Why, Gabriel, I think I should be offended."

Ashe feels cold fingertips, almost soothing against her rope-worn wrists, and then—freedom.

"There," says the woman.

"You're too kind."  Ashe stands on shaky legs as she rubs the raw skin of her wrists.  "Didn't catch your name, by the way."

"Reaper," growls the man called Gabriel as he exits the little room.  The woman gives a slight bow of her head and a flourish of her hand to indicate that Ashe should follow.

"While my associate prefers to remain incognito, I have never managed to refer to him as Reaper with a straight face," says the woman as they are bathed at last in the warm light from the hallway.

Ashe turns to respond and finds herself momentarily overwhelmed.  It's not easy to pinpoint why, and she doesn't like being caught off her guard.

Fortunately, before she has time to say anything, or to stare overlong, the woman continues.  "I, on the other hand, have no glowing reputation to protect."  She extends her left hand.  "Doctor Moira O'Deorain."

Ashe considers her proffered hand a moment, but doesn't think too much about it.  Maybe she's just some genius doctor who's left-handed and no one ever dared to give her shit for initiating backwards handshakes.

"Pleasure to meet you," says Ashe.  "Can't say I don't wish it were under better circumstances."

Moira lets out a huff of laughter.  She withdraws her hand and folds it behind her back, and then it's like everything's all settled between them.  She shows Ashe down the hallway and around a corner to what can only be her lab, a huge, sprawling thing that seems to have a different project laid out on every table.  She indicates Ashe's rifle, hung up properly on the far wall without a scratch on it, then shows Ashe the deactivated remains of B.O.B., laid out so neatly Ashe almost feels she could reassemble him herself.

She feels a twinge of something like regret, looking at him in pieces, but if Moira's deactivated him, he won't even know any time has passed by the time Ashe gets back.  "Why'd you shut him off?" she wonders, not without a note of melancholy in her voice.

"Perhaps you're a bit young to remember," says Moira, "but the trouble with the Omnic Crisis was that we were fighting an enemy that could _rebuild itself_."

It's a weird way of saying she was worried he might put himself back together, and Ashe is seized by the urge to tell her B.O.B. doesn't know how to do that by design.  The life she left behind was full of skittish old people who got off on seeing the monsters serve them, but of course the omnic butler line wouldn't come with all the same hardware as the omnics that could build armies.

But Ashe shouldn't tell her anything, and there's a fair chance that Moira knows that already, but just made the call out of caution, or to have something over Ashe.

"Additionally," Moira continues, "it seemed cruel and unnecessary to leave any creature sentient while helpless."

Ashe doesn't know what to say to that.

Moira tells her that the Oasis facility is so big, she never has to run into another person if she doesn't want to.  ("And usually, I don't.")  She asks again how Ashe is feeling, and when Ashe confesses to her headache, rope-burnt wrists, and a twinge in her leg from her showdown with McCree a day prior, Moira takes up some little gadget that lets off a noise like a spray bottle, and before Ashe has time to process that, the skin of her wrists starts to tingle as it heals, and Moira sets to work on her head.  Ashe notices for the first time that Moira's eyes are mismatched in colour.

Ashe remembers something now, with Moira's cold fingers against her cheek and the cool rush of biotic energy at her temple, about a new kind of healing tech and a disgraced scientist who just...disappeared.  "Don't suppose you're the one who invented this?" she wonders.

"Of course," says Moira, and a little smirk tugs at the corners of her lips.

"So, why's it such a big secret?" she presses.  "Is this stuff gonna kill me or something?"

Moira's smile falls, and Ashe is stunned to feel regret for teasing her.  "Certainly not.  Initial testing was rushed and ill-conceived by necessity, but the final product is flawless."

Ashe averts her eyes.  "So," she begins, subdued, "why'd you never live it down?"

"Hm."  Moira finishes her work on Ashe's temple and withdraws.  She turns her little gadget over in her hands while she thinks.  "A variety of reasons, I daresay, but perhaps most importantly, a young woman called Mercy springboarded off of my research to craft her own biotic technology.  She was...a far more pleasant face of medical advancement.  The world felt it did not need my discoveries, as it had hers."

She gestures that Ashe should follow her, and leads them into another hallway.

"Mercy?" Ashe echoes.  "Like the Overwatch lady with the wings?"

"Precisely."

"You ever meet her?"

Moira hesitates with her hand just shy of a doorknob.  "I did," she says.

The door opens into an entire guest wing like something out of Ashe's childhood, only all steely and shiny and future-y.  Moira indicates the room Reaper has chosen and tells Ashe that she may take any room besides.

"Can't say I'll be sleeping too soundly with your friend right next door," Ashe scoffs.

Moira hums thoughtfully, surveying the space with her hands folded behind her back.  "Gabriel poses no danger to you."

Ashe folds her arms skeptically.  "Mind giving me a little more information on that?"

"Well," Moira turns to face her, "you are currently a key component in his plan to exact some sort of misguided revenge upon Jesse McCree, therefore it would be against his self-interest to attack you.  Additionally, Gabriel is singularly focused upon vengeance against former Overwatch operatives, particularly those with whom he once had a personal relationship, and you fall under neither category."

Ashe quirks an eyebrow.  "And you're not worried?  All this talk of vengeance against former friends and suchlike?"

Moira inclines her head thoughtfully.  "No," she says, almost like the answer surprises her.  "But in the unlikely event of foul play," she continues, with that cocky little smirk from before, "I can handle myself."

Incredibly, Ashe finds herself smiling back.  "I wouldn't doubt that," she says.


	2. Chapter 2

Ashe's phone sustained a cracked screen in her ill-fated skirmish with McCree, but it still manages to locate the tracker in the key to her stolen bike.

Reaper hovers impatiently over her shoulder with folded arms and tapping toe, and so Ashe hands the results to Moira, instead.  "But if he's smart, he'll have ditched it by now," she qualifies, much as the idea pains her.

Moira takes her mangled phone and squints thoughtfully at the location marker.  With her free hand, she presses a button on her headset.  "Call Sombra," she says.

Reaper growls his protest.  "Do we have to get her involved?"

Moira waves a hand dismissively.  "There's no telling what we'll be walking into unless— Hello, Sombra.  I need a favour."

"Who's Sombra?" Ashe wonders quietly.

"Trouble," says Reaper.

"—location on Jesse McCree. — Yes, the cowboy.  I'm transmitting his last known coordinates now. — Thank you, Sombra."

Moira hands Ashe's phone back to her and returns her attention to her own holopad.  "There," she gestures triumphantly, presumably for Reaper's benefit.  "And what were you hoping to do, instead, Gabriel?  Go on a charming man hunt across the American South?"

Ashe approaches Moira's holopad.  Sombra thinks McCree is in some seedy hotel another day's ride from where he dumped Ashe's bike, because the hotel had a handful of registered names that 'seemed suspicious.'

"Overwatch strike team," Reaper guesses gravely.

Moira nods.  "Most likely."

Ashe curls her hand into a fist.  "Just like McCree, to go running for cover with his little friends just when he knows he really pissed me off."

"Patience, both of you," says Moira airily.  "Gabriel, would you like to acquire a fourth for our merry band of cold-blooded murderers before we set off into the unknown, or would you prefer to roll the dice?"

Reaper turns his back.  "We don't need anyone else.  And we don't need any more delays."

Moira sighs heavily.  "In any event, you'll need to give me an hour or two to prepare my field tech.  Ashe, will you need anything?"

Ashe shrugs.  "Give me my gun and I'm ready."

"Very well," says Moira with a curt nod.  She swipes away the screen on her holopad and turns her attention to a strange device sitting on another of her many lab tables.  "In the meantime, Gabriel," she continues briskly, "I suggest you _clear your head_.  Ashe, feel free to roam about as you please, so long as you don't venture beyond this area of the facility."

Feeling strangely hesitant, Ashe ventures a few steps after her.  "Mind if I stay and watch?"

Moira lifts a shoulder indifferently.  Ashe pushes herself up onto the side of one of the lab tables.

"Some setup you got here," she remarks.

Moira nods slowly, but her attention is on the apparatus in front of her.  It's like a backpack made up of winding tubes, and she checks the length of each of them meticulously while she responds.  "Yes, it's more than I could have hoped for, really," she says.  "Near-infinite resources and negligible oversight."

"What's in it for them?" Ashe wonders.

"Well," says Moira, "I am rather good at my job.  I'm also a medical doctor and a fair field agent in a pinch."

"Like this one?"

The corner of Moira's lips twitches upward into a tired sort of smile.  "This mission is hardly officially sanctioned."

Ashe lets out a little huff of disbelief.  "But you won't get in trouble with your boss or whatever?"

Moira stops what she's doing at last to meet Ashe's gaze.  "You don't know much about Talon, do you?"

Ashe laughs incredulously.  "Ma'am, I don't know much about anything!  You kidnapped me, remember?"

Moira straightens her posture abruptly.  "I did nothing of the sort," she counters.

"But you allowed it," Ashe leans forward.  "What, you like to sit back and pretend everything that happens is out of your hands or something?"

"I have no problem taking responsibility for the things I've done," Moira replies icily.  " I do not like to be accused of acts in which I had no hand."

"So you're against kidnapping or something?" Ashe presses with a quirked eyebrow.

Moira approaches dangerously, with slow, measured steps.  "I am against _false accusations_ ," she replies, somehow even more coldly than before.

"Fine, sorry," Ashe holds up her hands in defeat, acting considerably more relaxed than she feels, but Moira's stance does not change.  "Your friend kidnapped me and you're just along for the ride.  Doesn't change the fact that I have no idea what's going on here."

Moira inhales slowly, exhales evenly, and turns back to the device on her worktable.  "My apologies," she says crisply.  "Essentially I have two employers.  Oasis believes in scientific advancement at any cost, while Talon believes that sowing chaos makes humanity stronger.  In the event that my involvement in this misguided venture were to come to light, neither would take particular issue with it.  Indeed, certain Talon operatives might consider it a windfall."

"Huh," says Ashe simply, unwilling to pry further after such a confrontation.

Apparently satisfied with the state of the tube-y backpack, Moira retrieves an assortment of vials and bottles with colourful liquids inside them and labels Ashe can't read from here.  Ashe's eyes wander over other strange gadgets on other work tables, but catch on a framed picture that seems out of place among all the science-y stuff.  Ashe hops down from the table and crosses the room to investigate.

 _Who's this?_ she almost asks without thinking, but she quickly realizes that with Moira she'll have to be a bit craftier than that.  She takes up the picture frame while she considers her options and feels a nonsensical twinge of jealousy. 

Stupid.  It's not even a recent photo.  Moira's hair is different, and her right hand isn't mangled, and even with how little Ashe knows of Moira so far, she can't imagine Moira smiling like that, so wide it wrinkles up her nose.

The woman kissing Moira's cheek is a pretty blonde with a messy ponytail, but Ashe can't make out much else about her.  Her eyes are closed, and she's smiling a little bit, too, and she's leaving a bright pink lipstick stain on the spot she's kissing.

"So," Ashe begins carefully.  "These Talon people get you to do their dirty work sometimes, too, huh?"

"A small price to pay for unlimited resources," Moira replies, in her usual airy tone.

"Ever had to do anything hard?" Ashe presses, idly tracing the shapes of the faces in the photograph.

"How do you mean?"

Ashe shrugs.  "Suppose you had to knock off your family."

"Already dead."

"Boyfriend?"

Moira snorts.  "I haven't had to answer a question like that in a long time, Ashe."

Ashe doesn't know why she laughs.  It's a weird kind of relief.  "Girlfriend?"

"None to speak of."

"Then who's this?"

Silence.  Stillness.  Then, the quiet clinking and fizzing of Moira's work continues.  "That was a long time ago."

"Oh, come on," Ashe presses, against her better judgement.  "If it was such a long time ago, why still keep her photo around?"

"I'm working."

Ashe glances skeptically over her shoulder.  "Didn't stop you before."

"This is a time-sensitive—"

"Come on, who is she?"

"—chemical reaction, and if it is off by a millisecond, it will—"

"Did she dump you?  Do you want her back?"

"—kill us all in a fiery explosion, rendering this conversation—"

"If Talon asked you to kill her, could you do it—?"

"That," Moira does not quite shout, but the sharpness in her tone does not invite further questions, "would not be necessary," she continues, quieter, but no less threatening, "as she is already dead."

There's a pop and a fizz, and Moira pours the contents of her beaker into the container of her tube-covered backpack.

"I'm sorry," says Ashe quietly, but even a whisper feels too loud in the heavy silence she's created between them.  Ashe swallows, hard, but the sickness in her stomach does not subside.  "Who was she?"

Moira inhales shakily, sighs heavily.  "Doctor Angela Ziegler.  Former Overwatch operative, also known as Mercy."

Ashe looks up sharply, remembering something Moira said to her yesterday.  "Did Reaper kill her?" she wonders.

Moira retrieves still more tubes and sets about attaching them to her device.  "No," she says, with a definitive metallic _snap_.  "If he had," she says darkly, "we wouldn't be having this conversation."

There's another hard _snap_ and then Moira pulls the device onto her shoulders, and affixes the attachments to her wrists.  "Angela died in the same explosion which ought to have killed Gabriel," she continues, neutrally.  "And I wouldn't strictly say that the Gabriel I knew survived the incident."

Moira flexes her wrists, adjusts the device on her shoulders, and then gestures across the room to Ashe's gun hung up on the wall.  "Shall we?"

* * *

It feels good to have the weight of a rifle in her hands again, and Ashe is more than a little relieved that her weapon of choice sustained no damage in the events of the past few days.

It's also strangely comforting to be something of a lackey, something Ashe never would have expected to relish.  Ashe has never played second fiddle to anyone, let alone been reduced to a common henchman in her own scheme for vengeance, but as she gazes out the window of the weird little Oasis pod that serves as their means of travel, she finds it's actually kind of relaxing not to be the one calling the shots.

Reaper doesn't have to know that Ashe will be the one to kill McCree.  And with a little luck, she reckons she can get Moira on her side, too.  Ashe has always been good at making people see things her way in the end.

"Far be it from me to question your master plan, Gabriel," says Moira, sometime after there's nothing but ocean beneath them, "but what have you got against the cowboy?"

Ashe leans forward with interest, but Reaper only scoffs his discontentment with the question.  "Overwatch left us both to rot," he says grimly.  "Are you trying to tell me you don't have an axe to grind?"

Moira chuckles airily.  "If I had an _axe to grind_ with everyone who's ever left me to rot, I'd never get anything done.  So it's just the resurrection of Overwatch, then?  First fellow to turn up on the radar, that's your strategy?"

Reaper responds with a noncommittal sigh.

"Thought of you as a father figure, didn't he, our Jesse?" Moira needles him lightheartedly, even as Reaper begins to smoke up around the edges.

"Shut up, Moira."

Moira does not heed him.  "And here we are, off to kill him because of the organization you dragged him into."

"He _left_ ," Reaper growls, like a crash of thunder.

Moira falls silent, but only for a moment.  "So," she says, "he got out while he could, and you couldn't."  She lets out a little huff, then adds, dryly, "A far more fatherly sentiment than I anticipated."

Reaper scoffs.  "What would you know, Moira?  Everyone you ever cared about is dead already."

Moira is silent another long moment, and her knuckles turn white upon the control wheel.  "Right you are, Gabriel," she says icily.  "Why, if anyone I'd ever cared for had lived to see the present day, surely I, too, would be on a murderous rampage to correct the mistake."

Reaper fumes, and the sound is like rolling thunder, but all he says is a sullen, "I didn't come to you for moral advice."

"No one ever does," says Moira in a mocking singsong, and the silence that falls afterward feels thick and heavy.

Ashe leans back in her seat and does her best to heave a quiet sigh.  She wonders if maybe Moira has a point.  After all, isn't sentimentality the reason Ashe hesitated the last time?  If she put an end to Jesse once and for all, wouldn't she regret it later?  No more bad blood, no more broken trust and betrayal and humiliating standoffs, but also no more of the history between them, the time when they had each other's backs, maybe even understood one another a little.  No more of anything.

Ashe turns her attention to the window and traces shapes on the glass.  No.  Better to get this over and done with so she can get back to business.


	3. Chapter 3

Funny.  Ashe has only been away a couple of days, but she feels like she's been visiting a different reality.  There's some small comfort in being back on her home turf, as it were, even if the conditions aren't ideal, more in knowing this will all be over soon.

Ashe is quickly determined to be the least conspicuous of the three—Moira is an unusually tall woman with distinctive features and an Irish accent, and Reaper is a cloud monster—and as such she is tasked with checking them in under a false name.  Ashe, herself, is a wanted woman who doesn't exactly blend into a crowd, but even if anyone around these parts recognized her, they know what's good for them if they give her any trouble.

Sombra tells Moira that the only security camera in the joint sits above the very last door on the row of rooms, where they'll be staying, and that the other suspiciously-named guests are closer to the intersection.  Both groups are just outside the camera's field of vision.  "Not that it matters," Sombra amends cheekily.

Moira doesn't smile all the way.  Her lips quirk upward, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes.  Still, when she talks, her voice is warm.  "What would I do without you, Sombra?"

"Be really boring, probably," Sombra replies.

Once they're safely in the hotel room, Moira sets about readjusting her tube-y backpack, and Reaper checks and loads his shotguns.  Ashe fiddles with a bullet and tries not to let her mind drift anywhere in particular while they wait.

Ashe has never been good at sitting still.

She thinks about Moira's picture, and about how McCree must have seen the one she had taped to her bike.  It's not a picture like Moira's, and Ashe isn't sure she could rightly say why she kept it.  She doesn't look happy.  She wasn't happy.  She was focused on the game.  And there was McCree, smiling and joking next to her like he wasn't the one losing.

She'll track down her bike once this is done with, and if the picture is destroyed, then all the better.  If Moira is handy enough to fix B.O.B., she'd be more than qualified to fix whatever McCree's done to Ashe's bike.  Not necessary, of course—it wasn't part of the deal—but you don't meet someone like that every day, and Ashe isn't eager to see the back of her.

Weird, having the hots for someone like that.  Ashe usually prefers a certain type, not in looks but in demeanour, and Moira is hardly the wide-eyed, hapless sort who would get a kick out of just seeing a woman who can handle a rifle.  Even then, it's not so much the person as it is the feeling.  It's nice to feel special.  Important.  Ashe can never seem to get enough of that.

Ashe weaves her bullet between each of her fingers and back, over and over and over until she can quiet her racing thoughts.  In reality, it's probably under an hour before Sombra reports in, but in Ashe's mind, an eternity could have passed.

"—looks like the cowboy's alone," Sombra is saying over Moira's headset.  "Does he always dress like that?"

"Mhm," says Moira, not without amusement, but her attention is on her equipment.

There's a static-y little scoff.  "No wonder Blackwatch was such a disaster."

Moira lets out a little huff of laughter.  "Careful," she says airily.  "Wouldn't want you to be up next on our valiant commander's hit list."

"Ha!  Tell him I fucking dare him to come for me!"

Moira's features twitch subtly.  "I think I'll spare us all the trouble."

"Anyway, the cowboy is back in range of this stupid camera," Sombra continues, like it's part of the same conversation.  "Looks like he's going for the ice machine."

Reaper, who has been completely ignoring Moira and Sombra's conversation up until now, stands and readies his weapons.  Ashe follows suit, but looks to Moira for further instructions.

Moira raises her eyebrows.  "You two go ahead," she says dryly.  "I'll cover you if something goes amiss."

Ashe shoulders her gun, maybe a little cheekily.  "What," she says, "you don't want in on the action?"

It has the desired effect.  Moira's lips quirk upward into that little half-smile, and she narrows her eyes slightly, like she's studying Ashe.  "Somehow I think I'll survive."

Ashe shrugs.  "Suit yourself."

They hold a moment, eyes locked, and Ashe wonders distantly when she last felt her heart race for something other than gunfire.

"Target located," says Reaper from the door, and the moment is broken.

Ashe follows Reaper out of the room, gun poised to aim.  Her eyes aren't as sharp as the average sharpshooter, but McCree is easy to identify, all decked out like that in a dump like this.  They sweep in before McCree knows what hit him.  It's not even sporting, Ashe thinks, but then again, she thought she had him utterly outmatched the last time, and look where it landed her.

"We meet again," Reaper speaks, and McCree staggers around clutching his ice bucket like a shield.  Well, to be fair, he never really staggers, but Ashe knows all his tells, and he did not hear his assailant.

"Well," he says, in his usual drawl, but it's written all over the subtle lines of his face that he's nervous, "I gotta say, the last couple of days has been full of familiar faces."  His gaze falters, and his lips twitch.  "And, uh...voices."

"Have you enjoyed your freedom, McCree?" Reaper seems to loom even though they're about the same height.  "Have these last few years treated you well?"

"I, uh..." McCree's mouth hangs open, for once at a loss for words.  Ashe begins to think her involvement in this scheme wasn't such a bad thing, after all.  She moves slowly, inconspicuously, to line up her shot.  Let Reaper say what he needs to say.  Ashe is all out of words for Jesse McCree.

"And yet here you are," Reaper continues, gesturing vaguely with his shotgun.  "All set up to do more of Overwatch's dirty work."

"Look, they need me here—"

Reaper scoffs.  "Don't fool yourself.  Overwatch needs anyone it can control, anyone it can chew up and spit out."  He prods McCree's chest with his gun.  "You think you're exempt from that?  You think you're too good for that?"

McCree's eyes narrow in understanding.  "Reyes, what happened?" he asks, with sincerity.  "I...look, I thought you were dead."

He holds up his hands like a shrug, or a plea, and Ashe feels her grip on her gun loosen without her permission.  It aches, and twists, to remember that she doesn't really hate McCree, maybe can't.  Because Ashe knows that he means well, whatever he does, and she has known so few people in her life who had good intentions.

"Death would have been a kindness," says Reaper. 

Ashe hears the click of his finger on the trigger and scrambles to line up her shot again, determined even against her own better judgement that the final blow must be hers.  But before either of them can fire, a woman pushes past Reaper and stands in front of McCree. 

"Get out of my way!" Reaper growls, and Ashe is sure he'll shoot right through her, but then, over Ashe's shoulder, Moira speaks.

" _Stop_."

It isn't loud.  Her voice doesn't break, or hold any obvious emotion.  But the word invites no argument.  Reaper lowers his guns and turns on her, incredulity apparent even without a facial expression to read.

The woman turns, too, and her wide blue eyes grow somehow wider.  "Moira?"

Ashe feels Moira's hand upon her own shoulder, gentle, long fingers curling, and her focus is momentarily lost as she allows herself to be pushed aside.

"Angela," says Moira.  "As self-sacrificing as ever, I see."

It clicks like the sounds of danger, like a loaded gun or the lever on a grenade, the blonde hair and the pretty face and the name, and Ashe feels her heart twist in an entirely unwelcome direction.  Regret for her past with McCree, she had anticipated.  This, she had not.

The woman, Angela, narrows her eyes as though in shock.  "Are you part of this?" she demands.

Reaper, too, addresses Moira.  "She moves or she dies with him!"

But Moira towers over all three of them, as icy calm as when she snapped at Ashe earlier, and she addresses Reaper first.  "Any harm comes to her," she says, tone low and deadly, "and you'll have me to deal with."

Reaper stares her down, inasmuch as he can from behind his horrible mask, and in the midst of their standoff, McCree tries to sneak out from Angela's protection. "Hey!" Ashe cries, instinctively, and McCree notices her at last.

"Ashe?" he breathes, and at the center of her crosshair she can see genuine fear in his eyes.  She has him.  She has the shot, and he's unarmed, and she has two people for backup who know what they're doing, and then this will be over, no more bad blood, no more painful memories, no more torn up picture on her bike, and Ashe can just go back to—

Reaper fires first, a messy and terrible sound.  McCree ducks and runs, clutching his side.

"Damn it, Moira!" Reaper cries.

"Moira, what's going on here?" Angela demands a second time.

Moira glances back at Ashe with an unreadable expression, then raises her eyes to the concrete balcony just inches above the top of her head.  She closes her eyes and heaves a long, slow sigh.  "I could ask you the same question, Angela," she says at last.

"I'm not the one who just shot an innocent man!"

"Neither am I!" Moira fires back, and throws out her hands in a gesture of disbelief.

"But you're obviously allowing it!" Angela jabs Moira's chest with her pointer finger.

"I'd hardly call Jesse McCree an innocent man," Reaper growls.

"Oh, and who are you to judge?" Angela sneers, but her attention does not leave Moira.  "What are you doing here, Moira?  Did you come here to kill that man?"

"I came here," Moira replies, gesturing to Reaper," as a favour to an old friend."

Angela scoffs.  "Some favour.  Is this all you're here to do, or am I looking at the Talon agents we've been tasked with apprehending?"

"Tasked," Moira echoes derisively.  "As though a band of self-righteous mercenaries is somehow morally superior."

Angela laughs coldly.  "You know, Moira, I think nearly anyone would be morally superior to you."  She points again, but Moira doesn't so much as flinch.  "At least most people have morals to speak of."

Moira's mirthless smile is chilling.  "Yes, I've been hearing a lot about how little I care today.  Perhaps I should have allowed Gabriel to murder you after all."

Whatever Angela was going to say next dies on her lips, and she frowns in recognition.  "Gabriel?"  She turns to look at Reaper, and suddenly she reaches out as though to a hurting friend.  "What's happened to you?"

Reaper stands still a moment.  If Ashe had to guess, she'd say he was as stunned as she is by Angela's sudden change in demeanour towards him.  But in that split second of silence, there's another sound, a rustle and a misstep, and before Ashe can call out a warning, Reaper seems to move on instinct.

McCree has come back armed and with another man for backup.  It's clear they meant to get the drop on Reaper and Moira, but the unidentified one is clumsy, maybe young.  Reaper turns on a dime and fires a shot right into his head, and the man goes down with a terrible gurgle.

McCree fires at Reaper, but Reaper goes all shadowy around the edges and the bullets go right through him.  Moira drags Angela out of the way as though on instinct, and McCree's bullets hit only the concrete wall of the motel.

"McCree, stand down!" says Angela, but she hasn't quite moved away from Moira's protection.  The surge of jealousy that follows this observation is more than enough to refocus Ashe's attentions upon her original goal.  She lines up her shot and fires, but her aim is off, and her bullet only hits his shoulder before he ducks.

"Go inside, now!" Angela barks.  She pulls away from Moira at last and sighs heavily.  "I'm going to go and fix your mistakes," she says.  "Let me put this into terms that might mean something to you.  We have a job to do here.  Tomorrow afternoon, for all I care, you can go back to shooting at each other like your lives have taught you nothing."

Angela turns on her heel and marches over to the fallen man, scoops him up onto his feet, and helps him into the hotel room McCree has just entered.  Moira and Reaper stand in stunned silence and watch them disappear.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as I can tell in canon her whole name is supposed to be Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe but in this house we're pretending it's Elizabeth Caledonia and Ashe is a nickname. My business, my rules. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Also I'm switching computers (!!!) but that also means I'm switching keyboards and software and such so please excuse potential additional typos/formatting issues.

Time is a curious thing. Not too long ago, there was no evidence to suggest that time was anything but a construct to measure the passage of itself, the way the universe marches relentlessly forward regardless of everything. Indeed, when Moira's unfortunate tenure as a double-agent began, she regarded rumours of time-traveling Overwatch agents with the utmost skepticism. Moira has never been the sort to believe in what she cannot see for herself.

Five years, ten months, and fourteen days ago, Moira witnessed the way time could stop.

It was a bitter cold December, full of stupid betrayals and stupid questions. Moira had no fear of public disgrace, for she had faced it a hundredfold worse before, but this time around, she had been so foolish as to hope for some scrap of compassion from somewhere.

From Gabriel, perhaps, who had treated her as a friend and equal when she was at her lowest, or even from Angela, with whom she'd shared a very tumultuous fraction of a year. Angela, whose compassion knew no bounds, who reached out a helping hand to those who would have gladly seen her dead, could not be bothered to send so much as a greeting card containing her least sincere condolences.

So Moira had thought, brooded, fumed, bitter cold as the air in her lungs while she planned to spend the holidays moping alone in the dilapidated remains of her family home, which had lain empty of feeling much longer than it had been empty of people.

Restless and bored by her own misery, she had flipped on the television, like a flick of her wrist on the battlefield, and then time had slowed around her until it stopped altogether, and there was nothing but Moira and a distant voice speaking words she could hardly understand.

Now, Moira thinks, she must still be in shock, for she can't feel much of anything. More than a shadow of that old anger comes creeping back to haunt her, now with the added edge of her grief. Angela could have called, could have written, could have given Moira any indication that she was still alive. Did she think Moira wouldn't care? Did she think of Moira at all? Has Moira spent all this time agonizing over someone for whom she had been little more than an ill-advised fling?

Moira heaves a long sigh and throws her head back to look up into the night sky. She hears quiet footsteps on the ladder that brought her up to the roof of the hotel, and finds she is relieved to have the company.

"Rough night, huh?" says Ashe.

Moira lets out a breath of something like amusement. "I've had worse."

"Yeah?" Ashe moves to sit next to her. "Like what?"

The night I thought she died, Moira almost says without thinking. She inhales, hesitates, then falls silent. It's too much to say. Moira likes Ashe surprisingly well, but it's dangerous to confuse agreeable company with mutual trust.

"I take it you and Blondie didn't end on good terms?" Ashe guesses, anyway.

Moira chuckles mirthlessly, painfully. "Picked up on that, did you?"

"Whose fault was it?"

"Mine—ah!"

As soon as Moira responds, Ashe punches her hard in the shoulder. "Oh, come on!" she says. "It's never only your fault!"

Moira rubs her shoulder and affords Ashe a look of muted contempt. "Isn't it? I lied to her about the work I was doing, and when she found out, she was understandably upset. How is that her fault?"

Ashe scoffs. "Everybody lies."

"She doesn't," Moira says without thinking, small and impetuous like a child, equal parts protective and resentful.

"Sure," says Ashe dryly. "Not that you could tell."

Moira makes a noncommittal noise and returns her attention to the night sky. "So," she says, "what happened between you and the cowboy?"

Now it is Ashe's turn to laugh without mirth. "Nothing like _that_ ," she gestures vaguely. "But all right, I'll give you a little quid pro quo." Ashe turns away, and her hair catches the moonlight.

"You probably got a file on me or something," she begins, "but the Caledonia branch of the family tree was big into the illegal weapons. Especially explosives. Some horseshit about bringing power to the little people, you know, like they'd ever wanted for anything their whole lives." Moira hears Ashe shift her position so that she, too, can lean back to examine the stars.

"Way I heard it, my Ma wanted nothing to do with the shady stuff, and Pa straightened up for her, would you believe?" she scoffs. "Real upstanding citizens, you know, and didn't they believe it! I was...well, saying I wasn't what they were hoping for in a daughter would be an understatement."

Moira hazards a sidelong glance in Ashe's direction and tries to imagine her as a child. It's easier with some people than others, but Moira is certain she can see it now. Bossy, she thinks, and insufferably curious. The notion brings a faint smile to her lips. "What were they hoping for?" she wonders.

"Oh, there was the usual stuff, you know," Ashe continues, "wishing I'd get all dolled up and find me a nice husband at the ripe old age of thirteen, like it was the goddamn before-times. But I got this eye thing, right?" she gestures vaguely to her face. "And when you've got a thing, sometimes people think you can't do anything, you know?"  
Moira nods slowly. "I do, actually."

She had noticed, first Ashe's red eyes and pale hair, confirmed in her brows and lashes once her heavy make-up began to smudge, and because Moira is a very nosy geneticist, she had even gone so far as to note the eye Ashe seems to favour for aiming. Because she is a very nosy geneticist, and also because Moira, herself, nearly went blind in one eye while developing the tech that would save her. Though her cellular regeneration tech fully restored her vision, it's...different, than before.

"Huh." Ashe affords her a sideways glance, which Moira returns. "I guess you would, wouldn't you?"

"Go on," says Moira.

Ashe holds a moment, then returns her attention skyward. "What was I saying? Oh, right, so I was basically a shut-in, and as if that weren't enough, my parents wouldn't give me the time of day. Locked me up in the house and left me there! Sure I was damn ecstatic to meet Granddaddy. He didn't care about any of that. And—"

Ashe hesitates, frowns, and sighs. "And looking back, I realize it was because he'd have used anybody to get what he wanted. He'd bleed people dry if they let him. A graddaughter was just a...like a resource to him, but at the time?" Ashe lets out a little huff. "At the time, it was... Well. Someone who paid attention to me, someone who...who believed in me?" She frowns subtly. "I'd never had that before."

Moira tries to imagine bossy, insufferably curious Ashe being ignored, so thoroughly that any scrap of attention seemed monumental to her. This she finds impossible to envision. Ashe is not easy to ignore.

"My Granddaddy taught me to shoot, taught me how to read people, figure out what they want and then make them think they were getting it," she continues, but there's an edge to her tone now. "And then he taught me other things. He taught me how to cheat at cards, how to pick locks, how to start fires, and I..."

She turns her attention to Moira, red eyes and blonde lashes catching the moonlight. "I had a talent for it," she says, like she's incredulous even still. "And let me tell you, it is a funny thing, learning you've got a talent for things like that." She looks away again, and runs a hand through her hair. "That's not...it's not something to be proud of, you know?"

She chuckles, looks up again. "I guess you know about that, too, actually," she says.

Moira averts her gaze, but responds, not without humour, "I guess I do."

"Huh," says Ashe thoughtfully, and for a moment, the sounds of crickets and distant cars might well be the only noise in the world. After a long moment, Ashe scoots closer to Moira, so much so that Moira can feel the warmth of Ashe's arm just shy of her own.

"Anyway," says Ashe, quietly, "then I met this farm boy. I don't even remember how, honestly. Kept seeing him around. It's not like I took a shine to him or anything, I just liked the way he was. Easy manner. Straight shooter." She shrugs, and her shoulder brushes against Moira's.

"I liked him because nobody else in my life was like that. I think I just talked him into joining my crew because I didn't know how else to make friends. If you didn't wanna rob a bank with me, I didn't have time for you, you know?"

She elbows Moira gently, and Moira laughs quietly, but she's unaccustomed to physical closeness, and it's profoundly distracting.

"And McCree was...fun," Ashe continues, like a confession. "And I'd never had any fun before. And you know what he said to me? He said my Granddaddy was using me. And I got mad—really mad, crazy mad." She sighs. "But he was right. And there was nobody else in the whole damn world who would have dared to say that to my face."

"What did you do?" Moira asks her.

Ashe sighs again, a tired and heavy sound, and her gaze falls somewhere around Moira's hands folded in her lap. She's expecting Ashe to reach out, either physically or verbally, with the obvious question—what happened to Moira's right hand—after all, Ashe has yet to hold her tongue on any number of other sensitive topics. But the other shoe never drops. Ashe continues with her story.

"He said we'd get me out, right? Said if my Pa could do it, so could I. But I...well." Ashe's attention returns to her own hands, and she twists them together. "There's other ways of frightening a woman, you know, and a man could never really understand that." Ashe sighs again, long and deep. "One more job, Granddaddy said, and then we'd come to an agreement."

Ashe inhales as though to speak, but hesitates, and her frown deepens. "Maybe he tipped off the cops," she says. "Maybe I just got sloppy. At the time, it... I mean, I'm getting hauled off to jail and McCree just disappears?" She huffs. "What would you think?"

"You thought he turned you in?" Moira guesses.

Ashe doesn't move, barely seems to breathe. "Mhm."

"Do you still?"

Silence reigns between them for a long moment before Ashe responds. "No," she says, and perhaps the word comes as a surprise to her. "Not really, not anymore. After the Blackwatch stuff came out I got to looking over things again, and it didn't add up anymore. Hell, I don't think it's really his style, turning people in. I think..."

She catches herself, or her thoughts catch on her tongue, and she presses her fingers to her lips while she considers her words. "I think what mattered was that I believed he could have," she says slowly. "That...doubt? That never really goes away."

I know what you mean, Moira wants to say, but holds her tongue, because she is not eager to return Ashe's laser focus to herself. "And you're really prepared to kill him?" she tries instead.

"And why not?" Ashe fires back, quite suddenly just shy of incensed. "Who not two days ago just launched a bucket of grenades right at my face? You think he cares whether I live or die? Why shouldn't I end him once and for all?"

Moira inhales thoughtfully, and averts her gaze while she chooses her words. "Because..." she begins, haltingly. She holds out her hand in a vague, reaching kind of gesture, tracing shapes across a backdrop of stars. "When a person is alive, even if you despise one another, there remains...potential. Not just between the two of you, but for all that an existence comprises. But once a person is no longer alive, that potential vanishes. There is...nothing. Nothing good, nothing bad. Just..." she waves away the imaginary shapes. "Notthing."

She can feel Ashe's gaze upon her, focused and searching. "So you're glad she's alive," Ashe guesses. "Even though you hate each other."

Moira nods solemnly. She doesn't bother to amend that she doesn't hate Angela, and doesn't think Angela cares enough to hate her.

"So?" Ashe prods her arm gently, in the same place she slugged Moira earlier. "What's the story there?"

Moira shrugs noncommittally. "We worked together, once."

"Oh, you _worked together_ ," Ashe teases, leaning in, too close and too warm, and Moira cannot bring herself to decide whether she wants more desperately to lean away or to lean in.

"We worked together," she echoes, more sternly, "and I occasionally entertained the delusion that I was clever enough to play both sides."

"Both sides?"

"Overwatch," Moira clarifies, "and Talon."

Ashe leans in with a new kind of interest now. "And she didn't know?"

"No one knew," says Moira. "If not for the disaster in Venice no one would have known for awhile yet."

"That's when she found out?"

"Hm," Moira frowns, and taps a finger to her lip. "No. There were...incidents, before. Things she found, things she said, but I think..."

She can see it now, Angela's face made out of stars, the way her fists clenched at her sides and words caught on her tongue just before the end. "I think she didn't want to fight," says Moira, slowly, "because she didn't want everyone to be right about us. Or about her. And so I think sometimes she didn't fight...when she should have."

Ashe lets out a little huff of amusement, and she leans against Moira's arm. "I think you like it when people call bullshit on you," she says.

Moira affords her a sidelong glance, and tries valiantly to pretend she is unaffected. "Is that so? Well, I suppose you would know, wouldn't you?"

Ashe turns her face up, and suddenly they are very close, so close Moira can feel the warmth of Ashe's breath, can see the delicate lines at the corners of her lips. "You like it," says Ashe, "because most people wouldn't dare."

It's too much, far too sudden, and Moira is inclined to mistrust, but Moira is, most regrettably, only human, and far from immune to a beautiful face not a breath away from her own. "And what is it you like about me, Ashe?" she wonders, quite genuinely.

Ashe's lips quirk into a smile, sweet and mischievous and undeniable. "Who says I do?"

Moira leans in. "Bullshit."

Ashe's smile widens, and her teeth glint in the moonlight, somehow sharp like a wild animal. Moira can feel the little breaths of her laughter against her own lips, and the sensation sends a chill through her. She thinks she ought to close the distance between them, then thinks she ought to put a stop to this right now, before it's far, far too late.

Before Moira has time to do much of anything, Ashe threads her fingers through Moira's hair and pulls her into a kiss, and Moira sees nothing but stars.


	5. Chapter 5

Moira can’t help but to feel caught between the past and the present.  It’s odd to think of Angela and Ashe as remotely similar, and yet in this they mirror one another: they know what they want, and they take it by force.

Moira hadn’t expected Angela to kiss her, not quite in the same fashion.  Or perhaps she had, but she’d been so insecure, so unaccustomed to any sort of positive attention, especially from such a pretty woman, that she’d doubted her own intuition.

She’d like to pretend she’s changed since then, but some of that old insecurity lingers yet.  Moira finds herself wondering what Ashe wants from her, whether this is some kind of trap, and what the outcome will be if she allows herself a moment’s weakness.

And still, most regrettably, Moira is only human.  Ashe slings a leg over Moira’s lap, throws strong arms around Moira’s shoulders and kisses her deeply, and Moira’s mind goes momentarily blank.

Moira’s hands find Ashe’s waist, and she gathers only enough self-awareness to kiss back.  Unsurprisingly, Ashe is all hard muscle, and every move she makes feels like a fundamental shift in the fabric of Moira’s universe.  It’s overwhelming, and most certainly too much, especially given the state Moira was in not a few minutes prior.

But it’s also wonderful.  Like air after one has been drowning. 

Moira allows her hands to travel, allows her fingers to trace the curve of Ashe’s spine, and if she weren’t lost to reason already, the sound Ashe makes against her lips would have destroyed what remained of her resolve.  She wants to take control, to flip their positions so that she has the upper hand, but Ashe won’t allow it.  As though on a battlefield, Ashe seems to anticipate her intention, and counters it.  She bears down on Moira’s legs with her own, much stronger thighs and slides her hand curled into a fist between Moira’s legs.

Moira is almost embarrassed by the visceral groan that escapes her.

All the more so when she feels the smug turn of Ashe’s lips against her neck, followed by little breaths of laughter as Moira digs her nails into Ashe’s hips.

Too much, _too much_ , and Moira does not like to lose control, cannot gather her senses enough to protest.  More baffling still, she isn’t certain she wants to.  What does it mean, if she wants this madness to continue?  What does it mean, if she allows the utter decimation of everything she has ever known about her own desires?  What does it mean, if she compares Ashe to Angela, Angela to Ashe, back and forth, and finds that this heinous turn of thought only intensifies the sensation of Ashe’s hand between her thighs, Ashe’s teeth upon her neck?

 “Shouldn’t we—ah,” Moira manages, strangled, swallows hard against a fresh wave of overwhelming pleasure.  “Inside?” she finishes, hoarsely.

“What,” Ashe withdraws, drunk on conceit, “don’t tell me you’re a ‘nowhere-but-the-bed, lights-off’ kinda gal?”  She flattens her hand, touch soft by comparison, and slides it upwards to the button of Moira’s slacks.  “Afraid of a little adventure?”

Moira is faintly aware that she is trembling.  She feels it in the unsteadiness of her hands upon Ashe’s hips, and in the uncertain stuttering of her heart, which seems unbearably loud in the relative stillness of the night.  This is all so much, too much, and Ashe’s pale hair catches the moonlight behind her, and half of Moira can only think of Angela, remember the comparative softness of Angela, both in body and in manner, remember the way they had come together so well without even trying, remember the aching loss Moira felt when even the most fantastical possibility of a reunion seemed lost to her forever.

Moira _is_ afraid, and the thought of it is utterly mortifying to her.  Moira is not afraid of anything.  Moira has faced death and come out smiling, has faced public disgrace and come out with all she ever could have wanted, has faced soul-crushing loss, and come out alive, and now there is a beautiful woman sitting in her lap who wants her, for whatever reason, and Moira has the gall to feel afraid.

Ashe’s fingers stall at the button on Moira’s slacks, waiting, watching, hawk-eyed, and instead of acknowledging Ashe’s joke or contemplating her question any further, Moira reaches up to thread her fingers through Ashe’s hair and pulls her into a kiss, all the more decisive for how uncertain she feels.

Moira feels her slacks come undone, flinches subtly when cool, rough fingertips brush the bare skin of her abdomen.  And when Ashe slips her hand beneath the band of Moira’s underwear and meets with the undeniable evidence of Moira’s desire, Moira draws Ashe’s lower lip between her teeth, and allows herself to forget utterly what she was so concerned about a moment prior.

She feels herself nearing climax quickly, and violently, and when she tries to reciprocate the touch, to slide her own hand between Ashe’s thighs, Ashe takes her roughly by the wrist and pins her down.  Her palm scrapes against the concrete and she hardly notices the sting.

Angela wouldn’t have done it, Moira thinks without wanting to, not really.  Angela would tease at taking the lead, would hold Moira gently by the wrists if she received no pushback, but Angela is gone, isn’t gone, but is lost to Moira, so it shouldn’t matter, shouldn’t _matter_ , and Ashe knows just when Moira is nearing the edge, and she sinks her teeth into Moira’s neck when Moira feels her world begin to shatter. 

Moira doesn’t know what words she mutters into the fabric of Ashe’s shirt as the physical realm comes back into focus, and she doubts it’s anything either of them wants to hear.  She frees her hand from Ashe’s vise-grip at last and tries once again to reciprocate, but Ashe pushes her away, far more gently now.  “Uh-uh,” she says, low and sultry.  “I know your type.  Bet you had a few girls who let you do your thing and never returned the favour.”

Moira squints curiously.  “Strange logic.”

Ashe leans in and kisses her on the nose, quick and shocking in its own way.  “You can pay me back some other time, if you like,” she says with a little shrug.  “But tomorrow, we’ve got a job to do.”  She swings her leg over Moira’s lap once more, lets her fingers trail over Moira’s shoulder before she withdraws fully.  Before she retreats to the ladder from whence she came, she amends, with that same cocksure coolness, “Let’s say I prefer the tension before the release.”

“And you think I don’t?” Moira counters without thinking, without fully realizing she’s spoken.

Ashe laughs, low and warm.  “Honey, I’d say you’ve been tense a few years too long.”  She winks, and then she’s gone.

Moira casts a look of the utmost disbelief into the night sky, as though the stars might provide her some insight on how she ought to react to what has just transpired.  Then she sighs, easily defeated, straightens her shirt and buttons her slacks, and lies down on the cold concrete roof to try to make sense of her circumstances.

Before she can think of where to begin, she hears a fresh set of footsteps.

“Moira?  Is that you?”

Angela’s voice cuts like a knife.  Moira tries to hide the violent shudder that racks her body at the mere sound of it after all this time.  _You let me think you were dead_ , she almost snaps without preamble.  _Did you really think I didn’t care?  Does everyone really think I don’t care?_

“Why are you doing this, Moira?” Angela asks her, gently, in a tone far more familiar than the harshness from earlier.  But Moira is utterly overwrought, unable to bring herself to answer so simple a question.  “Do you really think you owe this to Gabriel?  Is there more I don’t know?”

Each of Angela’s footsteps feels monumental, a tiny aftershock in the wake of the catastrophic epiphany of her continue existence.  Moira avoids looking directly at her for as long as she can stand it, knows that Angela’s face bathed in moonlight, alive and well and beautiful as ever, might well unravel her at the seams.

The shape of Angela’s shadow obscures a fraction of the stars, and Moira is forced to relent.  She knows why people on the battlefield were sure they saw an actual angel standing above them, can imagine now the way they must have had the breath rent from their lungs at the sight of her.  As expected, Moira unfolds all too easily.  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, small and pitiful.

Angela shrouds her face in shadow as she sighs, and she kneels next to Moira slowly, like it pains her.  Moira sits up, just now noticing the sting in her left palm, and brings it subtly against her chest when she has righted herself.

She can feel warmth radiating from Angela, so near, so real, so alive, and curiously, Moira feels like she might weep for the sheer knowledge that Angela still exists.  She swallows hard against the impulse and waits for the answer to a question she never meant to ask.

“I was worried for you,” says Angela, quiet as the night wind.

Moira turns on her sharply, appalled.  “What?”

“When Overwatch was shut down, the world treated us like criminals,” Angela looks up, eyes shining.  “Many people wanted to paint us as terrorists.  No one knew you had any connection to us—to me.  I thought—“ Angela’s voice breaks.  She bows her head.  “I wanted to protect you.”

Moira’s frown deepens. “You could have told me.”

“I was being watched—monitored, everything: mail, telephone calls, I think the Swiss government knew what television shows I liked.  When the world thought I had died, it was…”

Angela’s fingers hover just shy of Moira’s knee, tracing shapes in the empty space between them.  “There’s still so much I want to do,” she continues, little more than a whisper.  “It’s easier if I don’t have some…past image of myself, holding me back.”

Angela might as well have stabbed her, for the pain her words inflict.  Moira turns her attention to the stars and tries valiantly to contain the horrible onslaught of anguish.  “I see,” she says thinly.

“That’s not what I meant, Moira!” Angela cries suddenly, sharply.  Before Moira has time to prepare, she feels Angela’s hand upon her cheek, willing her to turn her head, and Moira quite abruptly loses the battle with her treacherous emotions.

Moira turns her head away, tries to shake Angela’s hand without quite pushing.  “For all the compassion you show to the world,” she says roughly, “you don’t seem to have much for me.”

Angela withdraws her hand as though stricken, and for a moment, a terrible silence reigns between them.  Angels sinks down onto her knees and folds her arms like a shield.  “Maybe you’re right,” she says at last.

Angela sighs heavily and shifts into a more natural sitting position.  “I think it’s because…I expect more of you,” she says, slowly.  “I expect you to understand…so much more…than most people ever could.”

She lets out a breathy, strangled little laugh.  “When we first met, I think you seemed like a mind reader to me.”  Moira feels Angela’s eyes upon her, hesitant and hopeful.  “Perhaps I’ve never stopped thinking of you that way.”

Angela leans gently against Moira, never too much, never enough.  “I’m sorry, Moira,” she breathes.

Moira turns to face her at last, too startled to dissemble.

“Can you forgive me?” Angela asks her, bright-eyed and beautiful as ever.

 _Always, for anything_.

It’s only after Angela’s face contorts slightly, after Moira sees the glimmer of tears in the corners of Angela’s eyes, and after Angela leans in to kiss her, soft as starlight, that Moira realizes she’s spoken the words aloud.


	6. Chapter 6

Ashe doesn’t sleep much.  She’d like to say her mind is too full of pleasant thoughts, of kissing Moira or the imminence of her revenge.  Ashe is a talented liar, but she tries not to make a habit of lying to herself.

 _It doesn’t always have to be this way, Ashe_.

It wasn’t the first time McCree had said those exact words to her, and the familiarity of them sparked something ugly and terrible deep in her gut.  _Maybe you can just turn tail and run, Jesse_ , she wanted to say, _but I can’t.  I never could._

In fact, Ashe is starting to wonder whether she can really escape even a fraction of her past.  Talking about it with Moira felt rough and raw and too close to home for something that should be old news.  She wonders if in killing McCree, she’ll be on her way to being just like her Granddaddy, too cold and callous to see when mercy might spare her own soul, willing to use anyone to affirm power that was never even in question.  She wonders if in failing to kill McCree, she’ll be just like her parents, so weak-willed and wishy-washy they’d rearrange the bones in their own bodies to avoid getting their hands dirty.

There’s something else, too.  When you kill someone—when it’s up-close and personal, when you can see the light leave his eyes?  That never really goes away.  It’s thrilling, in its way, but it also haunts you.  If Ashe kills McCree, will she be binding his memory to hers for the rest of her days?  Will she ever be able to escape the legacy of what he put her through?

“Can’t sleep?”

It is only pride that prevents Ashe from flinching.  “Ever heard of knocking?” she says instead, through gritted teeth.

Reaper shrugs, a flicker of shadow against the dim light streaming in from outside.  “Politeness isn’t really on the top of my list anymore.”

Ashe snorts.  “No kidding.  You need something, or did you just come in here to check on my sleep schedule?”

Reaper holds a moment.  You’d never think about how unnerving it would be not to observe the basic, subconscious signs that a person standing in front of you is still breathing.

“I have a…business proposition.”

Ashe sits up, folds her arms.  “I’m listening.”

Reaper takes a step forward.  “Take care of Angela Ziegler.”

Ashe does not flinch, does not show surprise, nor fear, nor repulsion, nor even, horribly, just the slightest bit of interest.  “Now,” she says, with a practiced smirk, “why would I do a thing like that?”

Reaper shrugs.  “Money.  Connections.  A favour in return.”

Ashe chuckles icily.  “You don’t know the first thing about me, do you?”  She leans forward.  “I don’t need any of those things.”

Reaper nods slowly.  “Your old friend, McCree, has a limited time on this earth,” says Reaper.

Ashe raises a brow.  “Isn’t that the reason I’m here?”

“It’s not easy when it’s personal,” says Reaper.

Ashe’s affected smile returns, sharper than before.  “I beg to differ.”

“Take care of Angela,” says Reaper, “and you get a chance to say your farewells.”

Ashe’s smile falls, and she pushes herself off the bed and onto her feet.  “I got nothing left to say to Jesse McCree.”

“I think we both know that’s not true.”

 _It doesn’t always have to be this way, Ashe_.

Instead of responding, Ashe deflects, though perhaps not as seamlessly as she’d have liked.  “You really so scared of Moira, you won’t do your own dirty work?”

Reaper sighs heavily and turns away from her, and Ashe feels a fresh jolt of nerves.  It’s a move she knows well.  You lead with the easier offer, the more obvious one, but you know your target won’t take it.  You sigh, troubled—anguished, maybe—and you turn away, let them think they have the upper hand.  And then—

“You and Moira really…hit it off.”

Then, you hit ‘em where it hurts.

“And?” Ashe frowns, does her best to keep her tone even.

Reaper turns back to her, his shape more solid in his confidence.  “And,” he says, “as long as Angela’s in the picture?  The rest of us are nothing to her.  Bugs.  Filth.”  He moves closer suddenly, leans in and looms.  “ _Test subjects_.”

Ashe’s instinct is to back away from him, but she can feel the wall of the little room close behind her, and she knows better to let herself get backed into a corner.  She stands her ground.

“You think I’m stupid enough to buy that?” she scoffs.  “Moreover, you think that’s enough to hold up your end of this bargain?  Hell, I met the woman two days ago!”

Reaper stands taller, somehow, but he grows less certain, less solid as he continues.  “It’s lonely, isn’t it?” he says.  “Being…the way we are?”

Ashe knows her expression betrays her, just for a second.

“You can’t just do what everyone else does—meet someone, fall in love.  If you do…just…find someone?  It’s rare,” he nods slowly, retreats.  “Special.”

“You can’t play that card with me,” says Ashe, very unconvincingly.  “I’ve done just fine being _the way I am_.”

Reaper considers her a moment with horrible, inhuman stillness.  “Maybe you have,” he says.  “So let me put this a different way: you remember your first love?  Not a crush, not…unrequited pining.  Real love.”

It’s impossible for Reaper to sound anything but dark and foreboding.  Ashe finds herself wondering what his voice sounded like before, and how it would have changed what he’s saying to her.  Would he have been sad and wistful?  Soft-spoken and sincere?  Heartfelt and fervent?

“It changes you,” he continues.  “And it never really goes away.”

Ashe wouldn’t know.  She has never been in love, never even witnessed it, never even tasted of its promise.  _But oh,_ a treacherous thought whispers to her, swathed in the memory of Moira’s striking eyes full of starlight, _oh, how she could!_

“That’s what it’s like for them,” says Reaper.  “For Moira, at least.”

Ashe scoffs.  “I think you’re mistaken.”

Reaper turns on her.  “Where do you think Moira is right now?”

Ashe doesn’t have a response.  Her stomach turns unpleasantly.  She’d like to say she’s not a jealous person, or at the very least that she reserves her formidable jealousy for people she’s known a little longer, but jealousy is one of Ashe’s greatest vices, and it courses through her veins as readily as the air she breathes.

Reaper stands deadly still for a long moment.  Finally, he says, “You have until noon to decide.”

Ashe feels her lip twitch treacherously.  “And if I say no?”

There’s another long and terrible silence.  Ashe is acutely aware of her own breathing in the absence of Reaper’s.

“Then I’ll find another way,” says Reaper, somehow colder and darker than ever before.  He turns on her, so sharply she almost flinches.  “And you,” he says, pointing a shadowy finger at her heart, “will have made a dangerous enemy.”

Ashe lifts her chin and affects her usual cocksure smirk.  “Just so I’m clear on your terms,” she says airily.

Once Reaper makes his dramatic exit, Ashe is sure she’ll finally be tired enough, or just simply overwhelmed enough to get some shut-eye, but she makes the mistake of glancing at the cracked screen of her phone before her head hits the pillow.

The text is from an encrypted number.

_Can we talk?_

Ashe sighs heavily.

 _What’s left to say?_ she types.

[ENCRYPTED]: Plenty.  
[ENCRYPTED]: Please?  I know you’re still here.  
[ENCRYPTED]: It doesn’t have to be this way, Ashe.

Ashe lies down and squeezes her eyes closed, like she could just ignore this and go to sleep through sheer force of will.

All she can see behind her eyelids is her mugshot, the one that’s plastered across half the country, the one from when she was still so young and furious and alone and terrified.  No one has a more recent photo of her—she’s had to kill a few people who tried. 

The fear was written across her features plain as day back then, but somehow nobody ever saw it.  All they saw when they looked at her was a spoiled brat, a bitch who didn’t even get a fraction of what was coming to her, a nasty, cruel girl who needed to learn her place in the world.

“Turn to the front,” said the cameraman, all business, but then when Ashe turned to face him, his features softened into a sickening kind of smile.  “Oh, come on, Lizzie,” he said sweetly.  “You don’t really think those crocodile tears are gonna help you now?” He chuckled.  “Thought you were smarter than that.”

 _Where did they take McCree?_ she wanted to ask him, or _Do my parents know I’m here?  Do they even care?  Does anyone care?_

“Fuck you,” she said, instead.

The man’s affected smile fell, and he huffed his disapproval.  “Now,” he said, as the camera flashed, “is that any way for a lady to speak?”  He picked up his radio.  “Boys, she’s becoming hostile.”

Ashe was only seventeen at the time, small and barely strong enough to wield the rifle she carried, and still far more caught up in the high society social pressures of beauty than she’d ever have admitted.  Even still, it took three guards to drag her from the room, kicking and screaming the whole way.

 _You want hostile?_ she thought.  _I’ll give you hostile_.

In the present, Ashe picks up her phone again, scowls at the encrypted texts a moment longer, and then casts her phone aside as she stands.

McCree is easy to spot the minute Ashe leaves the room and looks down from the balcony.  He’s sitting on the roof of a car looking up at the fading stars.  She hates that seeing him feels more familiar than threatening.

“How’d you ever manage to get caught up in black ops, Jesse?” she wonders, not unkindly, as she descends the stairs.  “Stealth is not your calling card.”

McCree lets out a huff of amusement.  “Maybe you just know me too well to miss me.”  He pats the hood of the car next to him.

Ashe hesitates.  She glances up, takes stock of her surroundings.  They’re shielded from the roof, and she’d hear if the door of the room where the Overwatch operatives are staying opened in enough time to react.  She climbs up onto the hood of the car next to McCree.

“I didn’t want to go, Ashe,” says McCree.

Ashe’s heart twists, and she turns to look at him sharply.

“When we got hauled in, I mean,” McCree continues.  “It was Overwatch that got us busted, and Reyes—well.  I didn’t want to go, but…”

Ashe bites the inside of her cheek, tries to swallow down an old and ugly kind of anger.  “But what, he made you a better offer?”

McCree scoffs.  “Than rotting in prison?  Yeah!  With your connections, you weren’t gonna be in there long, but Reyes was gonna see to it that I went to some maximum security thing for the rest of my life!”

“And you really think I’d have let that happen?” Ashe snaps.  “You think I’d have _abandoned_ you like that?”

“I didn’t mean to abandon you, Ashe—“

“Yeah, well, you did!” Ashe cries, scrambling to her feet.  “You made me burn a lot of bridges, make a lot of enemies, and then you left!  And why?  Because you were scared?  Well how in the hell, how in the hell, Jesse!” She looks up into the sky and shakes her head, dizzy with rage.  “How do you think I felt?”

She looks down at him and folds her arms tightly, to hide the way she is beginning to tremble.  “How do you think I felt,” she asks him, low and unsteady, “when the only person I have _ever_ trusted let me down?”

McCree’s brow furrows.  He reaches out a hand, hesitantly.  “Ashe—“

“Do you really think,” Ashe cuts him off coldly, and does her best to ignore the sting of unshed tears in her eyes, “I mean—forget everything else.  Forget the gang, forget the rules.  Do you really think that there’s anything you could say that would make up for that?”

She waits.  She glares down at him and she waits.  And though she would never admit it, she hopes beyond all reason that there _is_ something he could say, and that he’ll find a way to say it.

McCree’s features contort a little, and he looks at her for a long time in silence.  Normal, human silence, with shaky breathing and two people who are too proud to cry.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Ashe,” says McCree, quietly, genuinely.

Ashe bites her lip, hard, and clenches her fists so tightly her nails dig into her palms.  She shakes her head.  “Not good enough, Jesse,” she says.

McCree opens his mouth like he’s going to try again, inhales, hesitates, shakes his head, and now there’s real fear in his eyes.  Ashe hops down off the hood of the car and makes her way back to the stairs.

“Finish your job,” she says over her shoulder.  “It’s not just that I’ll find you again if you run.  It’s that you’ll be proving more than just me absolutely right about you.”

She feels McCree’s eyes on her until she closes the hotel room door behind her.  She leans heavily against the door and squeezes her eyes closed.  A rustle and an intake of breath from inside the room bring her back to full attention.

Ashe glances around wildly, too tired and too rattled to feign indifference, but it’s just Moira, who’s taken up residence in the other bed in the brief time Ashe has been gone.  It’s about as unnerving as anything else that’s happened tonight, that Ashe didn’t hear her, that McCree might have seen her, or that Moira might have overheard any number of things.

But Moira shifts again, and if she’s pretending to be asleep, she does a much more convincing job than most people do.  She frowns deeply in her sleep and pulls the scrunched up hotel blankets against her like an awkward hug.

Ashe feels herself beginning to smile, impossibly, maybe a little painfully, and she does her best to shake the feeling from the forefront of her mind.  She crawls into her own bed, boots and all, and sets an alarm on her phone for ten. 

She doesn’t expect to sleep, but it’s a nice thought.


End file.
